Smarty Jones puts Philadelphia's minor-league track on map

May 09, 2004|By Neil Milbert, Tribune staff reporter.

BENSALEM, Pa. — Philadelphia Park suddenly has become the Rocky of racetracks.

Dating back to the 13 original Colonies, Philadelphia has been one of America's major cities. Since the advent of professional sports, the city's baseball, football, basketball and hockey teams have proud traditions befitting their residence in the birthplace of the Declaration of Independence.

But suburban Bensalem also is the home of Philadelphia Park, a unique Philadelphia-area sports venue. It started out as a minor-league racetrack when it opened bearing the name Keystone on Nov. 4, 1974, and it has remained one.

Now, at last, Philadelphia Park has a claim to fame. Stall 11 in Barn 38 on the Philadelphia Park backstretch is the home of Smarty Jones, the undefeated Kentucky Derby winner.

Never before had a horse started out in Philadelphia and won America's most coveted race. The last time Philadelphia had an underdog like this was in the 1970s when actor Sylvester Stallone portrayed boxer Rocky Balboa.

A combination of history, geography and economics is responsible for Philadelphia Park's lack of stature. It doesn't have the rich racing traditions of Belmont, Saratoga, Aqueduct and Monmouth to the north and Pimlico and Laurel to the south. These tracks in New York, New Jersey and Maryland all have more purse money to entice the better horses who generate bigger betting revenue. Thanks to subsidies from its slot machines, Delaware Park, about an hour away, also is running far ahead of Philadelphia Park in purses.

When Smarty Jones won the Kentucky Derby, his husband-and-wife owners, Roy and Pat Chapman, collected the $854,800 winner's share of the $1 million purse, plus another $5 million in Oaklawn Park bonus money. The bonus was a reward Smarty Jones earned for also winning Oaklawn's Rebel Stakes and Arkansas Derby.

But the afternoon Smarty Jones won the Kentucky Derby, the most lucrative of the 11 races on the Philadelphia Park program was an optional claiming race with a $32,000 purse.

"What makes this racetrack unique is that this probably is the first racetrack that copied the amenities of the best-looking off-track betting facilities instead of the other way around. Instead of the traditional grandstand with lots of seats facing the track it's more like the amenities of an off-track facility."

The sudden tidal wave of publicity that Philadelphia Park received last week when Smarty Jones came home for the first time since early January rivaled that of the Philadelphia Flyers when they eliminated Toronto to advance to the Stanley Cup semifinals.

"To be honest, I was pretty naive about the whole thing," said John Servis, who has 41 other horses at Philadelphia Park in the charge of assistant Maureen Donnelly while he trains Smarty Jones exclusively. "I had no idea how big it was back here in Philly till I got back. I was kind of shocked.

"When I left the track [Tuesday night] after driving back from Kentucky, I turned into my development and every house had balloons that were blue and white (the colors Smarty Jones carries) on every mailbox."

The public was invited to watch Smarty Jones' 8:30 a.m. light workout Saturday and approximately 5,000 fans showed up to cheer the local hero. Philadelphia Park Vice President Joe Wilson said the people consumed 4,000 free doughnuts, drank 225 gallons of free coffee and bought 2,000 Smarty Jones T-shirts.

The new-found celebrity hasn't tempted Servis to move to the big-league tracks.

"I'm not born and raised here, but this has been my home for a long, long time," the 45-year-old trainer said. "I have a lot of good friends here. My kids are very comfortable here. As far as the racetrack goes, the guys who run it put on a good show, they've treated me so well and the track has a good surface to train on.

"What it really comes down to is I'm happy here and my family is happy. I could work my butt off and be a Wayne Lukas or a Bob Baffert, but that's not important for me. This is home."